I'm Lost And Shall Never Be Found
by Metronome I Hear
Summary: It was inevitable, really. That it would happen one day. No matter how much he clung to it, eventually it would slip, and the day it did was the day everything changed. Or in which Obito's only constant companion is a shiny little light and letting go somehow leads him to become the Cloud Arcobaleno.
1. Chapter 1

There was a sort of light that glimmered among the black, pure for all that it was tainted and lost for all that it was found. Contradictory in existence, an illusion found amongst reality, lost in the web of lies that was made up of sweet words and even sweeter actions. It lay hidden, hidden behind fire just as it was hidden behind water. Under a thousand leagues of ocean water, waves crashing and rising and raging as if the gods were yelling about the absurdity of the world.

And it glimmered.

Obito saw it. He had always seen it and he liked to think to himself that he always would see it, that little light that glimmered on the edge of madness, lost in the throes of forest legends, shattered amongst the brightest burning stars.

It interested him.

And it was his in the way that nothing else was. It was his even after the world around him rejected it's existence, just as they rejected him.

( _Dead last. They were shadowed figures standing around him, surrounding him and closing in on him._ _ **Failure**_ )

But he knew it was real. Obito knew it was real and he clung to it, clung to it like a babe would a blanket or their mother's shirt. He clung to it and refused to let it go, never having known what it was like not to be clutching it in his palms and holding it against his soul. He feared what would happen should he let go.

( _Nothing would happen. Not really. It was just a light, nothing more_ )

And he was late. Day after day after day he was late. He was late because he got lost in it, lost in the things that it showed him, lost in the world that it coveted, that it shared with him and only him, for only he had found it and seen it's secrets.

( _He cling to it still, even as the moon shone red and Rin lay dead in his arms and his world was shattered._ )

And the years passed by, blurs of mad cackling laughter and night terrors filled with blood and dead eyes. He dreamed and he screamed, yelling and raging and breaking down under each and every crack made on his consciousness.

He lied. He lied and cheated and manipulated and murdered. He started wars and ended others, using people as a child who played with dolls would. He gazed out at the world behind an orange spiral mask, wondering all the while where he went wrong, what he could have done differently.

( _It glimmered and shone and he clung to it. His precious light._ )

And finally the last boss let out a roar, bloody flowers blooming upon the corpses on the fallen and the Master( _teacher kidnapper manipulator torturer_ ) stood by his side like an avenging angel, clad in armor the same shade of blood, eyes purple rings that haunted his dreams. He looked out at the world and laughed at them, looking down on them for their foolishness even as his every piece lay broken on the ground and Sensei's shadow clad in a god's golden light stood before him, defiant even when white eyes lay dead on the ground behind him.

He fought. He fought as he always did, teetering between reality and the void. Lightning crackled and fire was blown and by the end of it all he lay dying on the floor, his entire world turned upside down because of one child.

Uzumaki Naruto changed him.

( _It glimmered and shone and sparkled and glowed_ )

And it was while he lay there on the ground, fighting all around him and a white goddess battling the reincarnations of her grandsons that it happened. So long it had been, and he had held onto it with a desperation like no other. It was his only constant, his only companion. And he feared what would happen should he let go. He feared what would happen should it slip from his grasp and drift off into the abyss. But it happened.

He let go.

( _It was inevitable, really. That it would happen one day. No matter how much he clung to it, eventually it would slip_ )

Purple fire erupted around him. He was burning and burning and burning and _oh kami he was on fire_.

And then there was nothing.

 **AN: I suppose you could say that this story is inspired by "This is Gospel" by** SparkleMoose **but in truth I've wanted to write something like this for a long time and "This is Gospel" was more the trigger to actually sit down and actually write the thing than actual inspiration. I'm going to warn you now, Updates will be rather random. Just ask the followers of my other stories; I have a tendency to disappear for a month or two and get sidetracked by other projects. I will, however, finish this one day. I refuse to abandon it. Wish me luck!**


	2. Chapter 2

The first thing Obito noticed when he woke up was the sky.

It was a cerulean blue, the color of Konoha's sky's during the later summer months when the days were at their hottests and all the lakes were swarming with children trying to get away from the heat. A cloud drifted over head, just a single wispy sort of cloud that looked like scattered smoke from a cigar. The sun was blocked from his vision, covered by the buildings that were on either side of him.

The second thing he noticed was that he wasn't dead.

Obito shot up from where he lay and a hand went up and grasped his chest, clutching the area where his heart would be and searching searching searching for the connection he had to the little light that had always seemed to hover around him.

( _He couldn't find it he couldntcouldnt_ _ **couldnt**_ _and godDAMN IT WHERE IS IT_ )

He sucked in a deep breath, eyes going wide and teeth clenching when he couldn't find that connection. There was nothing but emptiness there, nothing but a gaping chasm of nothingness, filled with the blackest of blacks and a feeling like ice.

The next thing Obito noticed was that his body felt wrong.

( _And really, it took an embarrassingly long time to notice that particular thing_ )

He held his hands out in front of them, mind suddenly void of all the panic that had been there just a moment ago. The skin of both hands were the same color. They hadn't been the same color in 20 years, not since before he had woken in Madara's cave, broken broken broken from the boulder that had crushed his side. They were smaller than they were supposed to be, the callosus of decades of shinobi training gone as if they had never been there in the first place. He raised his hands to his head, begging his theory to be wrong, and hesitantly touched the skin of his face.

There were no scars.

None. Not the scars that stretched over the right side of his face, they weren't there. The skin was smooth and soft and entirely unfamiliar.

( _Just what had happened to him?_ )

The memory of fire bloomed in his mind, brilliantly colored purple flames that burned and burned and burned, whispering sweetly to him words of freedom, wilderness, and independance. And he remembered the pain, the way that the flames had crawled over his limbs and consumed his flesh faster than Zetsu would ever be able to eat a corpse.

He took a shuttering breath and stood, wrapping his arms around himself and pushing the memory away. Pushing it away left him feeling cold, freezing actually, but he couldn't deal with it now, couldn't stand the thought.

It was then, and only then, that Obito finally took the chance to take in his surroundings. They were bleak and a bit dirty, but nothing too bad. The ground was paved with a worn down stone, and the walls of the two buildings making up the sides of the alleyway he had found himself in were brick and the cream colored paint was flaking off. The weather was warm, which was a good thing considering he only had the remnants of his pants on, and the sky was, as per his earlier observation, mostly clear with a flew clouds drifting about. He could hear the sounds of commerce from outside the alleyway, and caught glimpses of people walking too and fro while carrying bags filled with various vegetables.

He also couldn't understand a word being spoken.

( _And wasn't that just his luck?_ )

Obito took a step back and noted that his limbs were indeed shorter than they had been just a short while ago. If he had to guess, he was somewhere around the height he had been at 13, just shortly before the fateful trip to Kanabi Bridge.

( _They were falling falling falling and Kakashi was right_ _ **there**_ _and he just_ _ **moved**_ _and now he was dying dying dying he_ _ **didn't want to die**_ )

Making adjustments in his mind to accommodate for his decreased height, Obito melded with the shadows and made his way through the streets.

…

It didn't take long to steal some clothes from a nearby store. It took an even shorter time to find a bathroom where he could change and take a look at his face.

The collared shirt he had stolen scratched at his skin, the fabric felt constricting. But it was his only choice in clothing for the moment, and it was in the same style as what all the men wandering around outside wore. Right now, his priorities lay with figuring out where he was and what exactly had happened to him.

Obito took a deep breath, steadying his heartbeat as he walked over to the sink with the dirty mirror hanging above it. He closed his eyes, a bit scared to look. If he looked, then it would make everything real. He wouldn't be able to ignore the lack of scars anymore, the smooth skin where there should have been anything but.

He opened his eyes and looked.

An unfamiliar face stared mockingly back at Obito from the mirror. It was most definitely his, but it was younger and free of all the scars. His hair and eye color had changed too, a bright purple color that matched the color of the flames that had bloomed around him.

It seemed almost like that event was mocking him, the flames flickering in the back of his consciousness, wavering and whispering and welcoming, beckoning him forward, begging him to get lost among the throes of madness the likes of which he had once relished in.

It was maddening.

And he raised a hand and traced the scar free skin on his face, still not quite believing it even after all the evidence presented to him. A quiet laugh escaped his lips as he stared, eyes echoing the hollowness that followed him around, like lost puppies looking for a home.

( _He had nothing now. No ambition to keep him going. No hope of an illusion, of seeing Rin's smile again. All of it was gone and he could hear Bakashi laughing at him_ )

His mouth twitched upwards into a grim smile as he thought, his mind spiraling down and down and down, his laughter gaining a slightly hysterical edge to it.

( _He was lost on the road of life_ )

…..

Two weeks and nothing. He traveled and stole everything that he needed to live, never staying in one place for long. He just sort of… drifted, for lack of a better word. It wasn't like he had much else to do, with no idea where he was and no understanding of the language.

Kamui had worked. He was able to use it just as he always did, despite the difference in physical age from when he had last used it. But no matter how hard he had tried, he hadn't been able to get back to the Elemental Nations. Whenever he tried, he kept running into a wall, an impenetrable barrier that he couldn't pass no matter what he did.

( _How annoying_ )

Nevertheless, he was thankful that beyond the wall he ran into when trying to go to the Elemental Nations, Kamui still worked normally. It was the ultimate cheat and provided him a safe place to go whenever the weather took a turn for the worst.

Obito had made little progress with regards to figuring out where he was. He had managed to gleam that the city he had woken up in was called Paris and that the country was called France, but there was little more information to gleam beyond that.

Learning the language was slow and frustrating. He hadn't seen or heard anything even remotely resembling what he spoke, so translating everything was difficult to say the least.

So he continued to travel, gathering what little information he could while he went.

( _Time moved onwards_ tick tock tick tock _never ending time_ )


End file.
